Tuesday, February 19, 2013

A few days ago, we reached out for help to gather evidence about the use of “Python” in Europe. We received an overwhelming response from the community, with hundreds of letters from individuals, companies, and universities, as well as scans of articles, book covers, conference T-shirts, and brochures. It has been truly been amazing to see.Unfortunately, we also saw that there were a few who decided to directly attack the people and the company we are opposing. We put out a call for civility - and we want to emphasize that any hacktivism or threats will end up hurting the Python community in the long run. This is not who we are or how we act.Although the issues have not yet been resolved, we are engaged in good-faith negotiations with the head of Veber, and we hope and expect that we will be able to announce a settlement soon.Signed,Van LindbergChairman, Python Software Foundation

Friday, February 15, 2013

When we first announced our trademark issues yesterday, we immediately and continually received a great outpouring of support from our community. The number of supporting emails in our inbox is tremendous, and the financial support has been incredible. For this, we thank all of you.

However, it has come to our attention that the organization with which we are currently involved in a trademark dispute has been receiving messages from our community members, including threats. We ask that no matter who you support in this matter, that you remain civil in your communications and actions.

It is important that we maintain the positive and friendly atmosphere that Python is known for regardless of the situation at hand.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

For a French translation of this post, click here.For anyone who works in a company that has an office in a EU Community member state, we need your help.There is a company in the UK that is trying to trademark the use of the term "Python" for all software, services, servers... pretty much anything having to do with a computer. Specifically, it is the company that got a hold on the python.co.uk domain 13 years ago. At that time we weren't looking a lot at trademark issues, and so we didn't get that domain.

This hasn't been an issue since then because the python.co.uk domain has, for most of its life, just forwarded its traffic on to the parent companies, veber.co.uk and pobox.co.uk. Unfortunately, Veber has decided that they want to start using the name "Python" for their server products.

We contacted the owners of python.co.uk repeatedly and tried to discuss the matter with them. They blew us off and responded by filing the community trademark application claiming the exclusive right to use "Python" for software, servers, and web services - everywhere in Europe.

We got legal counsel in the UK and we (the PSF) are opposing the community trademark application, but our own trademark application hasn't yet matured. Accordingly, we are going with the trademark rights we have developed through using "Python" consistently over the past 20 years.

According to our London counsel, some of the best pieces of evidence we can submit to the European trademark office are official letters from well-known companies "using PYTHON branded software in various member states of the EU" so that we can "obtain independent witness statements from them attesting to the trade origin significance of the PYTHON mark in connection with the software and related goods/services." We also need evidence of use throughout the EU.

What can you do?1. Do you work for a company that uses Python? Are in the EU, do you hire in the EU, or do you have an office in the EU? Could you write a letter on company letterhead that we can forward to our EU counsel?

We would want:

just a brief description of how Python is used at your company,

how your company looks for and recognizes "Python" as only coming from the PSF, and

your view that another company using term Python to refer to services, software, and servers would be confusing

This doesn't need to be long - just a couple of paragraphs, but we would want any description of how you use Python for software, web hosting, Internet servers, VPNs, design and development of computer hardware or software, hosting websites, renting servers (like Openstack), or backup services. For those who are interested the specific class descriptions are at the bottom of this message. [1][2]

This is the first time the PSF has to take legal action to protect Python's intellectual property. Please do consider helping the PSF in any way you can. The threat is real and can potentially harm your business in Europe, especially if you are in the web hosting business and provide Python as part of your hosting plans.Please let me know if there are any questions that I can answer. If you know someone who might have this information, please feel free to forward this.

The mission of the Python Software Foundation is to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers.